Animals and Aquatics
Animals and Aquatics
The Continuing Education Buffet: A Therapist's Perspective
Join Gina and Ryan, an OT couple, in their podcast "Animals and Aquatics" as they delve into the world of continuing education. From workshops to conferences, they explore the importance of expanding one's horizons and stepping outside of comfort zones. With a mix of personal experiences and professional insights, they discuss the diverse range of learning opportunities available to therapists. From niche certifications to practical skills, they share strategies for lifelong learning and overcoming learning paralysis. Tune in to gain valuable insights and navigate your own journey of professional development with Gina and Ryan.
So this week, we're talking about continuing education. And if you listen in, you'll hear that Ryan is clearly the star of the show. And we are still working out are co-hosting audio, but I hope you can listen in.
Microphone (Logi USB Headset) & Integrated Camera-1:Hi, welcome to animals and aquatics. I'm Gina. And I'm Ryan. And tonight we're going to share a little bit about our continuing education journey. If you've listened to us before you know that we are an OT couple. And so we can use just about any excuse to justify our ever-growing continuing education budget. From new things we want to explore or things that we are already familiar with, but want to expand our base of knowledge. Continuing education is a really important. Part of expanding your horizons and really just getting outside of your comfort zone. If you've listened to the podcast two episodes ago, you also heard episode on conferences. And this month in March has just been a really big month for conferences with the American hippotherapy, association conference and the American occupational therapy association conference. And that's a big part of our continuing education budget for this year as well. Now it hasn't been every year. But certainly for this year. Both the opportunity to network with others and to get some really new information about what's been going on. Both in the world of hippotherapy, and in the OT world. That is really been a big building block for us. And now that we. gone through the conferences, we'll be taking that information and really building it into our business going forward this year. And I think to share a little bit about our continuing education journey. It's important to start with some of the things that we've really enjoyed. And maybe some of the things that we've really struggled with continuing education. Yeah. So I consume a lot of podcast style learning audible learning. So, I'd say that. A lot of my continuing education has done on the fly. Through occupational therapy.com. And that's a great resource. If I want to look and see if there's anything. Oh, T based that is speaking about a specific diagnosis or a particular type of setting. Or if there's just something going on in the field that I want to learn a bit more about. Alright, shameless plug and disclosure. I have been paid by occupational therapy.com the workshops that I've done for them. So I've done one on hippotherapy,, one on horses in mental health, and one on Shinran Yoko. And I definitely agree with Ryan. I love. Occupational therapy.com because it allows me to explore. New areas of practice or. Topics without the additional financial expense. Going to maybe a specific continuing education course for. Like that topic. And so I look at it like a, almost like a Chinese food buffet and it's I think I pay one price and I can go and pick and have a little bit of whatever I want. So I really liked that I can take, a seating and mobility. Workshop. With that I would never ever go to if I had to pay for that individually, because I just, I don't see that many clients it's not. That relevant to the types of clients that I see now, but, I think it's interesting and I think it supports me overall as a clinician. So I would say. This same thing for ot.com. I love. The variety. I would say of topics offered. Yeah. And I think one of the other great things about it is that you don't have to get too heavily time invested either. It's we've taken some continuing ed that took like an entire weekend to get through or to get most of the way through. Some that we haven't finished yet. But I think we'll get to that. It is a goal. It is a goal. But the great thing about. OT.com is you can invest 45 minutes an hour. Get some CPU's and either reinforce what you already know and what you're already doing. Or maybe even give some language to things that you're already doing, but you're, you don't. Really. Like for me early as a newer clinician. Having language for The explaining the why of what I'm doing is really helpful. I think that sometimes we take things for granted and we don't really think about You know the why of things sometimes. And so even if it's something that we are already familiar with or have it already incorporated it doesn't really hurt to reinforce the knowledge base that we have. Yeah. That made me think of that NBC OT navigator. So if you have your C or you have your far, you can do continuing education on the NBC OT platform. And they're definitely not as quick or efficient. As. Course. But just see you cases are actually very good. And they remind me of the simucases that my students have to take. So I actually, I like doing some of them, because not only are they more in depth than they give you some clinical reasoning feedback? But it also allows me to step into the shoes of some of my OTA students. That are doing simucases so I'm a little bit more familiar with the style and the format, and I can give them some guidance when they come up with a challenge with that, with the simucase. So I do like that. The NBCOT navigator also allows us to track continuing education hours. It has some, relatively quick quizzes that you can take as well. So that's another good resource. If you have your C or your AR and you're getting ready to track hours, you can go in and log some hours there as well. And Ryan alluded to some of our heavier denser. Continuing education forays that we've really struggled with and it's high on our list to finish. Because a we invested in it. B. We think that there will be some marketing return on it. And I think probably what our biggest challenge with that was is that we enjoyed a lot of the contents. I think there's 20 hours. So, and I think we're about. 15 or more. We're pretty close. Yeah. And I think we have maybe three, three learning blocks left. Yeah. So we hit a couple that didn't really resonate with us and you're gonna get that when you're listening to a variety of different speakers on one topic and it just really bogged us down on it. It took a little bit of the motivation out of doing it. So. It's we ha we have to get back on the horse. Yeah, there, there was some things in there that were really interesting and we're like, wow. Like that. But then there's other things that just. Like I said, didn't resonate or. Contradicted. Are not part of, are not part of our philosophy. Yeah. So. So I, being able to just take that in. Acknowledge, it's not part of our treatment philosophy. Move on. And finish it, I think is important. Because like we're. Midway through and I don't know once every few weeks where Hey. And we should really finish that. And. It's one of those. It was really nice because we were taking it together. And so we were playing at each on our device, but then we could chit chat about. What we were seeing what we thought if we needed, like we could stop and have a discussion about. So one of us would mute there. together. Because you had we each had to be logged in since we're both getting the continuing education for. Then have the opportunity to discuss. What we thought about, or if it job, which that probably also made it take longer.'cause we, we would have spent on hold on. You have to stop. We're having these spinoff conversations. And. I think that can lead into a little bit about certifications and continuing education, because you think as therapists, we love to collect certifications like, and I do tell that to my students. I'm like, your. Best bang for your buck is to get a certification rather than another degree. It's so much more applicable. It's so much more useful. But with a lot of certifications, they have their own continuing education requirements. So it becomes this this machine that you're sort of caught in. So you have like, Your state and, most states have continuing education requirements for licensure. Our state does not. But we maintain our continuing education for our NBC OT. so we're doing them anyway. If we moved to another state. It's not going to be a big deal, but then as I hippotherapy clinical specialists, I have continuing education requirements there. Like each certification you have, you have continuing education to maintain the certification. And for quite a long while I was certified as an infant massage instructor. And that was one of the certifications that I've actually. I lapsed the continuing education requirement on because although using the infant massage techniques is really helpful. And just, I wasn't teaching classes, I wasn't teaching parent groups on infant massage and it just, again, it was like another sort of niche side area that I would have to take, like massage, continuing education classes and just. Didn't do it. Yeah. I guess we should. Should we get into the. Did we cover everything? The bigger block. I think we talked about the smaller block trainings, like the one-offs, which are great. And there's some really interesting, bigger block ones. And there's like you said, the letters after name and all that. There's, there's also some other Programs that I would really like to explore. I'd really like to get into a therapeutic listening. And I'd really like to get a certification in that especially given the settings that we work in. I think that it would be. Applicable, I guess the only. Thing that we're trying to navigate is the juice worth the squeeze and. They do tend to be a sizeable monetary commitment on an annual basis. For that. And so we're trying to figure out. I'm really what would be the best? The best way to go forward with that. So that's another area that we're exploring for this year, potentially. Do we have enough clients throughout the year to justify the subscription costs like the training, totally doable, but the subscription costs. For the program. Is that area of it's not like you own the music anymore. It's not like you own the audio anymore. You have to subscribe every year. And that's our concern right now. Is are we going to have enough families that are either interested in paying extra or would we just. Incorporate it in. To our base pricing. And so again, something that's a little bit more in depth, that would be another in our toolbox. And we would be excited to bring in. And I think that's one of the things about continuing education, right? It can. Open doors to bring in new tools, new treatment strategies. New things to offer to families that you're working with. And. Then it's just figuring out. Either how you're going to fund it, or is the return on investment going to be really good for that? The other thing that I can't help, but think of and I don't want to go too far off topic here, but Continuing education or certifications outside of the therapy world. So. For example I have a, I'm a red cross certified lifeguard, and I feel that maintaining that is. Pretty important backstopping as far as working in an aquatic environment That's kind of a bare minimum, but there's other certifications out there. There's water safety instructor. There are the. The red cross, you used to have an adaptive swim certification, but they did away with that. That was my understanding, but, there's some non therapy specific. I mean, even if we want to talk about the basics. First aid CPR. You know that. That's a pretty. And if you're, you. It's one thing if you're working somewhere, because if you're working for somebody else, then they're more than likely footing the bill every year for you to take the CPR course and maintain your certification. But. You know if if you're the private practitioner, then, these are the things you've got to think about. As additional safety measures for your clients. And I think putting that out there too, there's nothing wrong with putting that out there and letting the clients know that. You're CPR certified because that's going to give them an additional level of comfort with you. That you'd be there in case anything were to happen. Where those skills are needed. I think that brings up. A really interesting point because you were talking about it in the aquatic setting. So if we talk about it and that equine setting, a lot of people will immediately ask, do they need to become a path? Riding instructor and. Unless your intention is to go and teach horseback riding. Then that's probably not the best avenue for you because it is very lumpy. The horsemanship requirement is significant. And if your intention is to incorporate horses into occupational therapy. Then becoming a horseback riding instructor is really like a separate. Half. No pun intended on that. But you also do need to have a basic level of horsemanship skills to be safe in the environment. So a lot of times I think that comes into the. Non-formal continuing education. So things like mentoring, networking, coaching Volunteering. I think those. All fall in that, like it is continuing education. And some of the coaching clients that I've worked with, we have set up a plan for them so that they can get NDC. Continuing education units by setting up a mentoring plan. So I think there are the things that are outside of. AOTA approved continuing education provider status that also contribute greatly to your skills and competency at a particular, when you are working in a niche area. Well, I would say I'm looking at the other. Area of practice that we work in is the nature based. And so even. Some continuing ed and that department, I think that can be very handy if you're if you're not really an outdoors type. Some basic plant identifications. Safety measures for. The natural environment if you're on a. Two mile hike and something goes wrong. You know what. What do you do in a. What are the types of. The resources that would be available to help. And now nowadays with cell phones and, And that's not as much of a concern I guess, but I'm still having a solid safety plan. In places pretty important. And really what that's about is identifying skill gaps is I think the best way to look at that as to, Look at all. Right. What, what skills am I lacking to meet? The demands of whatever potential scenario you could likely find yourself in. But then there's other things I think that you could work to get smarter on orienteering or you have been basically. I guess what I'm trying to say is that. If you're working in one of these outside of the box. Niche settings. Like we work in. Looking around and kind of seeing what you could use, not just in therapeutic training, but also, outside of that what could be helpful, then. And not being afraid to expand your knowledge base in those areas as well. Yeah. I like that idea of a skills gap, because it can be clinical skills. It can be practical skills or it could be safety skills. Any of those areas. There are continuing education opportunities to fill those again, not everything falls under that AOTA approved provider of continuing education. But if you are going to work in in a niche area if you're going to be successful well, Another area that we didn't talk about is like business business. Um, I didn't want to cut you off, but I wasn't gonna say business. Yeah, that's right. So. I guess that's why our joke is like, The continuing education budget we can go way down the rabbit hole. We both enjoy learning and learning new skills and learning new things. And so. I think. On that you can also get caught up in. Learning and not doing like. Can be the bandaid. Instead of doing the hard thing too. Yeah. And maybe like, well, I just need to do this. Like one more. Once I get these letters at the end of my name, then I'll be. Yeah. Then I'll do the thing. Well, that's it. And like, you're, you're going to learn so much more by doing. And, and I think you're going to make mistakes. That's kind of inevitable, but I think if you have some core values that you can hold onto in your in your practice and in your treatment methodology. And your approach. If you can hold on to those things and you understand why they're. Your core values then. The mistakes that you make. Won't. I don't really matter all that much. Yeah, I think once you've identified The safety skills, the practical skills, and you're covered in there. Because continuing education and being in the therapy world is a lifelong learning process. There's always going to be an area that we're going to focus on or watch improve on. If you are working in private practice for yourself. The business skills are never ending. And what we can learn and grow and business certainly is changing. And what opportunities we have available to us. So, we have all these things at our disposal. And it's amazing that we can connect with people like all around the world. Really. And tap into their expertise and sometimes we can do it for free on social media. Sometimes it's through. I'm using paid coaching programs. And other times it's through that networking that we do at conferences and face-to-face communities, but there's a lot of opportunities for continuing education out there. I guess I would just say. Don't let it stop you from doing the thing. Don't let it stop you from actually moving forward with what it is you want to do. Yeah. I think if you have a vision of what it is that you're supposed to be doing. And you go after that. It is really easy to. Let that fear take, hold and think. Well, I need. I need X, Y, or Z. And it could be more training. It could be. The perfect setting. It could be. I think we can come up with any number of excuses not to get that forward movement happening, but at the end of the day, I think. We hold ourselves back a lot. So I think as we come to wrapping up today, talking about continuing education. We covered different formats of courses from really short. The face style. Learning to really deep dives where you're going to come away with a certification after it. And, we. Ryan brought up the skills gap area. And how you can look to fill in skills gap areas, whether they, those are practical skills, safety skills, or therapeutic skills. And then we kind of stumbled into the. Learning paralysis and getting tripped up on all the opportunities that are out there too. Learn and grow and letting that stop us from going out and actually serving the people that we're meant to serve. Well, we hope this gave you some insight into the way that we look at continuing ed and the way that we approach it. And Maybe. Ask some of those questions of yourself and take a look at. The way that you've been approaching it and As always, if you appreciated listening to this podcast, you can like share and subscribe and we would appreciate it.
